American theater and film actress Nancy Kelly is most remembered for her part in the stage play and movie adaptation of “The Bad Seed.” She received honors for her depiction of a suicide mother in the play, and she was nominated for an Academy Award for playing the same part in the movie adaptation. She was exposed to the entertainment industry as a young child because she was born into a modeling and performing family. Her mother, Nan Kelly, trained her daughter and oversaw her career. She was a silent cinema actress. By the time she was 17, Young Nancy had already acted in 52 movies, demonstrating her prodigious talent as a young actor. She also had a lengthy modeling career when she was younger and worked in radio when she was a teen. She was a young woman who effortlessly left her uncomfortable adolescent years behind to become an adult actress. In several movies opposite actors like Henry Fonda and Spencer Tracy, she became a leading lady in the late 1930s. She simultaneously had a lucrative career as a Broadway stage actor. She became a respectable character actor throughout the years and gave some of her most well-known performances in dramatic and thriller movies.
Early Childhood & Life
Nancy Kelly was born on March 25, 1921, into an Irish-American family in Lowell, Massachusetts, to Ann Mary “Nan” (née Walsh) and John Augustus Kelly. Her brother Jack Kelly, one of her three brothers, also pursued a career in acting. Her mother was a silent film actress who prepared her children for the entertainment industry from a young age, while her father was a theatrical ticket dealer who subsequently entered the real estate industry.
She began acting in movies when she was a young girl. The young girl was very well-liked and had a lovely appearance. By the time she was 17, Nancy had appeared in 52 movies with her mother serving as her manager. She worked as a child model for numerous commercials.
She worked a lot in radio as a teenager because she was blessed with a pleasant voice in addition to her attractive looks. She portrayed the ingenue on CBS Radio’s “The March of Time” series and provided the voice of Dorothy Gale in the 1933–1934 radio production “The Wizard of Oz.” She was able to play both male and female roles thanks to her vocal versatility.
The career of Nancy Kelly
In 1938, when she was 17 years old, she returned to acting in movies as an adult. In 1938, she published “Submarine Patrol” and “Tailspin”; in 1939, she published “Stanley and Livingstone” and “Jesse James.” She garnered a lot of praise for her performance in “Jesse James,” one of the biggest singles of the year.
She played Valerie in the 1940 comedy movie “He Married His Wife,” which was about a divorced man who intends to wed his ex-wife once more. Cesar Romero, Joel McCrea, and Roland Young were among the cast members of this black-and-white film.
With movies like “Scotland Yard” (1941), “A Very Young Lady” (1941), “Parachute Battalion” (1941), “Tornado” (1943), “Women in Bondage” (1943), “Show Business” (1944), “The Woman Who Came Back” (1945), “Follow That Woman” (1945), and “Murder in the Music Hall” (1946), she continued to have a string of successes throughout the 1940s. She continued to perform on the stage throughout her entire film career.
Over time, the talented woman transformed from being the leading lady to a character actress. Her most well-known film role occurred quite late in her career. She played Christine Penmark, a mom who becomes despondent after learning that her little daughter is truly a vicious killer, in the 1956 film “The Bad Seed.” Both the audience and the critics praised how she was portrayed as a woman who had experienced emotional pain.
She was active on television in the latter years of her career, appearing in the major parts of the episodes “The Storm” (1961) of “Thriller” and “The Lonely Hours” (1963) of “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.”
Bigger Works of Nancy Kelly
Nancy Kelly is well known for playing the suicidal mother Christine in the play “The Bad Seed,” for which she received widespread praise and honors. She played the same part again in the play’s film adaptation, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Recognition & Achievements
She was a well-known stage performer who took home a Tony Award and a Sarah Siddons Award in 1955 for her starring performance in “The Bad Seed” on Broadway. For her work in a stage adaptation of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” she received a second Sarah Siddons Award.
Nancy Kelly, who was honored in February 1960, has a star at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Personal Legacy & Life
Nancy Kelly was married three times, and each of them ended in divorce. Her first union, which began in 1941 with actor Edmond O’Brien, dissolved the following year.
She married director Fred Jackman again in 1946, but this union was also brief; the pair separated in 1950.
In 1955, she was married for the third and last time. Warren Caro, a theater director, was her third husband; they were the parents of one daughter. This union also fell apart over time and broke up in 1968.
She had diabetes, and on January 2, 1995, at the age of 73, she passed away as a result of the disease’s complications.
Nancy Kelly’s Net Worth
Nancy is one of the wealthiest and most well-known movie actresses. Nancy Kelly has a net worth of $5 million, per our analysis of data from sources like Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider.